The Planets and Their Children
A Blockbook of Medieval Popular Astrology

The influence of the planets on humans was a subject of popular interest in
mid-fifteenth century Europe. Addressed in many medical and
astrological
manuscripts of the time, it made its mark in early printing through the
appearance of blockbooks which contained depictions of each
planet in
anthropomorphic form together with an illustration of the pasttimes,
professions, and conditions of its "children" - people influenced at birth by the
planet. For each planet, the images were matched with texts which reviewed what we would
call "astronomical" information about the planet (position, period, speed, etc.) and
"astrological" information on its "children".

There are both manuscript and printed versions of these illustrated texts.
The version presented here
is meant specifically to give
a modern reader an immediate experience of these books,
to make this particular late-medieval common knowledge accessible to the nonspecialist.